iStock.com/portfolio/viorelkurnosov
Summary:
- Betterment – Best overall
- Acorns – Best for beginners / micro-investing
- Robinhood – Best for active trading
- Fundrise – Best for real estate
- Coinbase – Best for cryptocurrency
- Betterment
Betterment is a great investment app with a $0 minimum account balance, $10 minimum account balance for investing, low 0.25% annual account management fee, and a wide range of investment options. This app lets you set your investment goals using goal types that include major purchases, education, and retirement. Once your goals are set, Betterment can automatically select the portfolio that is the best fit. If you are looking for low cost, professional, and automated portfolio management, then look no further than Betterment.
- Acorns
Acorns is great for people who are new to investing and may not have a lot of money to contribute right away. The best benefits of this app are its $0 account minimum ($5 minimum to invest), low $3 per month account management fee, and ability to automatically invest spare change from online purchases. The sign up process only takes a few minutes, and you can up to a $20 bonus on your first $5 investment, along with unlimited $5 referral bonuses.
- Robinhood
Robinhood made our list of best investment apps by being a low-cost broker with a wide range of investment options, and free stock promotions worth up to $200. This app offers investments in stocks, ETFs, options, and cryptocurrency. Robinhood also has a $0 account minimum and $0 commission fees. Get started with Robinhood now for low-cost, flexible investing, and keep an eye out for the best free stock promotions when signing up.
- Fundrise
Fundrise is one of the best real estate investment apps available right now. Benefits include access to real estate investing for non accredited investors, crowdfunded investments, and a simple-to-use interface. Investment options include real estate investment trusts (REITs), real estate funds, and venture funds. Fundrise offers several investment plans with investment minimums ranging from $10 for Fundrise’s starter portfolio to $100,000 for a premium account. We recommend Fundrise as an easy way to get started with real estate investing for those who want to diversify their investment portfolio, may have limited funding, and want to avoid rental property management.
- Coinbase
Coinbase is our recommended app for investing in cryptocurrency. This cryptocurrency trading platform has well over 200 cryptocurrencies available to trade, a $0 account minimum, $2 investment minimum, easy conversion from one cryptocurrency to another, and a beginner-friendly app interface. Coinbase also lets users withdraw cryptocurrency immediately after making a purchase. If you download the app and create an account now, you might even be eligible for two of Coinbase’s new user incentives. One of the incentives is $5 of Bitcoin just for signing up. The other incentive is an opportunity for new users to spin a wheel to receive between $3 and $200 in either cash or Bitcoin.